In response to Michael Goncher’s ‘How Much of a Priority Do You Make Sleep?’
I don’t believe that I or my pears have made sleep much of a priority in our daily lives. I think that the responsibility to balance school work, while still being social, staying active and practicing hobbies, sleep tends to take not a secondary role but is rather fifth on the list of priorities. I don’t believe that sleep impacts the way your body functions that drastically. From my experience, I am able to perform daily tasks and learn at the same level regardless of having 3 hours of sleep or 8 hours of sleep. Furthermore, I find that I am sometimes able to perform better on three hours of sleep granted that around midday I find myself crashing in energy levels. Due to this sacrificing one thing (sleep) for the fields of my life seems like an obvious decision. I have found that my peers do the same, and compensate by taking naps during break times in school or drinking coffee. The workload that high school students are presented along with the social and extracurricular responsibilities I find that students are forced to disregard sleep whether they would like to do so or not. For this reason, I think rather than asking how much of a priority sleep is people should be asking ‘how important is sleep for the body really?’ and ‘How can you get good grades, be social, take part in activities and get sleep?
